Windows 2003 Active Directory Management tips: Migrating Print Services

Most companies choose to deploy new hardware devices when deciding to migrate Windows systems, whether from Windows NT to Windows2003,windows 2000 to Windows 2003, or from internal forest migrations. Instead of upgrading their old machines to Windows Server 2003. In this relatively complex migration approach, there is one service that needs to be migrated: the Print service. In the process of migrating print services, there are two basic considerations you must know:

Removing printer shares, permissions, and drives

Update the client to point to the new server

Your first reaction must be: what is there, I can do it manually (you can actually do that). But some people are sure to think: "We have 5,000 clients and 10 print servers!" "In this case, it's not realistic to use a manual completion method." This means you have to consider a way to automatically help you migrate print services, where I recommend you use Printmig, a Print Service Migration tool. This free tool provided by Microsoft can make your print service migration process very easy. The Printmig tool contains two basic features: exporting the environment of the source print server about the print service and importing the exported print environment to the target server. Now let's take a look at the first step in migrating the Print service to the new server.

The Printmig export operation creates a file with a suffix named. cab that includes all registry keys, share names, permission settings, and drivers associated with the print service. The only thing we need to do is copy this file to the new server. However, before importing this file into the target print server, we have a preparation to do, that is, you must install all the print monitor programs on the old print server on the new server. For example, if you have an HP JetDirect print monitor on your original server (so your server can support the JetDirect port type), you must install the same print monitor program on the new server to enable the new server to support the port of the associated printer. Then you can start importing to the new server. CAB file, all you have to do is select the "Import" option in the Printmig tool and select the file you just exported, is it convenient?

Now it's time to update your client computer. Here are two ways to choose: one is to update each client's settings so that the client points to the new server name. You can choose to manually change, use script files, or use third party software, such as ScriptLogic ' s Desktop authority. Whichever method you take, all you do is remove the destination path for the old print server on the client and create a new destination path. Maybe some friends will feel that this is not very good, then I recommend you another more opportunistic way, that is, your old server name as the new server's subordinate name. For example: Suppose your old server name is called Nt4ps, and the new server name is called W2k3ps. After you use Printmig to migrate all the printers on nt4ps to W2k3ps, nt4ps retire, so you can open Registry Editor on W2k3ps and expand to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services \lanmanserver\parameters

Then add a key of type REG_SZ, named Optionalnames, and set its value to "nt4ps". So your w2k2ps has an alias like the original server. After the reboot, the W2K3PS server will respond to requests for nt4ps for all target paths. The print task is sent to the W2K3PS server and starts printing, regardless of whether the user's client is pointing to "\\NT4PS\HP2100" or "\\W2K3PS\HP2100" when the printer is positioned. Now that you know, using the Printmig tool and the way the update client printer points out in this article will make your print service migration process a simple, quick, and easy task.